The past is the past, but that doesn’t mean to forget it. History defines a person, a people, and a nation. Without it, we lack roots.

~Dagda, the All-Father, Chief of the Gods

The chamber was practically a void. There was no sound, little light, nothing to see or do. Even when he shouted, the room muted the sound. It felt like he was underwater.

“Hello? What is this?”

“Your reward.”

“Uh… its neat,” Crow claimed, trying to keep a straight face, but he couldn’t stop his brow from furrowing.

“…”

“…”

“…”

“Okay, if you can just show me the door…?” Crow finally broke the standoff.

The voice sighed. “Idiot.”

“You gave me an empty room as a reward, and I’m the idiot?”

“Take it.” A booklet appeared and on the far side of the room. At the same time, a section of the wall shifted until an archway filled with bricks appeared. “You will pass this challenge if you can phase through those bricks. You fail if you can’t do it within thirty days.”

“Is it really thirty days? Can you tell me how long I’ve been in this Clocktower?”

“Less than a week. Time is roughly five times slower in this place. You can consider this another type of reward. Cultivate well.”

Crow grabbed the book. The text was in the ancient language, and they etched the cover with gold filigree. On the dark cray cover, there was only one word that glowed in the dim light… Ghosting.

“Oh!” Crow involuntarily cried out.

He immediately immersed himself in the manual. From cover to cover, Crow read the entire manual as if enthralled. The content didn’t provide him with the skill but the toolkit to design it himself.

Unbeknownst to him, the room filled with Ghost Mana, which dropped the temperature drastically. With the fire inside him, he barely paid any attention to it. Had he focused on it, he’d have seen the mana was purer than the Ghost Mana at the graveyard he trained in recently. At his current level, only Frigid Mana would be enough to worry him.

Instead, he focused on the Celtic Knot that the manual recommended, which was the Serch Bythol. The symbol itself looked like a circle with wings and traditionally represented everlasting love between two people. However, the diagrams and description claimed it meant two people intertwined through mind, body, and spirit.

Crow immediately grasped the import of using such a knot. Phasing through time was essentially two versions of himself—the one at the origin point and the one at the destination. It was an interpretation he might have derived given enough time and made absolute sense once pointed out within the context of time. Either way, it was a clever choice.

Browsing through a list of chosen runes and their descriptions, Crow noticed Nion was at the forefront of them and was required. The other choices were more to augment the phasing aspects. Ghostly Visage and Ghost steps all had overlapping Ogham runes with the options presented.

More out of instinct, he chose the prominent ones from both skills to include in the Ghosting ability. Crow wasn’t totally sure why he was using this method, but instinct told him it was the correct path. Ghosts could phase, and he wondered if that was also related to time.

The original idea was to create this ability as a stage or aspect of Ghost Steps but realized the manual was guiding him differently. Based on the hints it provided, it seemed to indicate that Ghosting had many more applications than he was currently comprehending. In case he missed anything, he read the manual a dozen more times using his Sage’s Mind.

With Sage’s Mind, he read it line by line to memorize, analyze, and ponder each part of the small manual. The more he read it, the more things seemed to elude his grasp. Time was a mystical concept that hovered outside most people’s understanding. This manual almost felt like a cheat.

After doing that, he also brought up his other two abilities and combed through each of them. Minutes, hours, and days slowly flowed by, and the insights kept growing. After several failures and a few serious injuries, he felt he understood what needed to be done.

Crow didn’t know why he was still on a time loop, but his mind subconsciously recorded each reset. The first six, he tested ideas, the next seventeen, he sat with his eyes closed. The twenty-third reset since he entered the chamber, his eyes finally snapped open.

***

Mara entered an empty chamber and saw three books floating before her. Their dark gray covers caused the golden filigree to stand out in the dim room. Each title sound more impressive than the last. The first was StarSlide, the second was Void Soul Doppelganger, and the last was Void Dimension Blade.

Touching each, it gave her a brief description, and she quickly eliminated StarSlide. An evil grin graced her face because she knew this was Acco’s ability. She’d get it from him one way or the other.

Void Soul Doppelganger was highly unusual. She understood what the ability did but couldn’t figure out why she’d want it. It wasn’t like the Void creature it created would give her a second life, and it had to remain in the Void. However, she thought about what advice Crow would give her, and she felt this was the type of ability he’d choose for her. Not only that, he’d say something stupid like the less you understand a thing, the more profound it was.

Sighing, she touched the last book, saw the description for Void Dimension Blade, and felt it was easier to understand and had more use to her. She enjoyed using a blade, and creating a slash into the Void was something few could survive at their level. It was just more practical.

“This is a reward, and you may only choose one. Please note, if you cannot comprehend it and fail this challenge, you won’t get to rechallenge it. Pass or fail, the next time you enter the challenge, you’ll automatically get sent to the next challenge. This is considered a reward challenge from the Clocktower.”

“What level of comprehension?”

“Basic is fine, as long as you can demonstrate your ability to use it. Failing will also remove the ability from your mind.”

Mara nodded and reached out to select her ability.

***

Acco sighed, feeling undecided and unhappy. Before him were two abilities, and both made him want to cry.

“Why!? How is this fair!?” He shouted. “You bastards are scamming me!”

“We don’t think so. Without your Constellation, you wouldn’t be here.”

“That is not my Constellation!”

“Then what would you call the stars you see in your mind?”

“…not fair,” he muttered.

The reason he was angry was that both the abilities before him required a Constellation to cast. He couldn’t use these on his own. In other words, he’d need to join up with Crow and Mara to cast them. Complete bullshit.

“We’ve decided. You can take both.”

“Wh-that still is—CROW!” Acco shouted, frustrated at getting caught up with that son of a bitch.

Finally, he grabbed both books, and when the abilities entered his mind, he stood there stunned and unable to move. Ignoring the second booklet, which was just a barrier that the Constellation could cast, the first one was enough to cause Astrologers to become hunted for all eternity.

Rite of Shield Awakening couldn’t be authentic. His heart was slamming in his chest when he sat down and started reading. It was exactly as it sounded. Using this spell, a Constellation would drain the Source of each star to help a cultivator produce a Shield. It didn’t even require the damned trial.

“Your worries are unfounded. Read the restrictions.” The Clocktower told him.

So he flipped to that page and let out a shuddering breath. There was only one restriction listed. The spell required an unfated to be one star in the Constellation. This spell was damned near useless, except Acco was sure that Crow was unfated. He’d spent quite a bit of time trying to spy on the guy to know that most normal methods didn’t work on him.

Still, he couldn’t calm down, as this was something that would shock every cultivator that heard about it. The success rate was abnormally high, too. Based on the text, its success rate was above that of the Ascension Trial.

“Why would the Clocktower even have something like this?” Acco finally asked.

“Time is strange the more you understand. Important things get lost—forgotten. Did you know that the tower didn’t create Shields? A weak cultivator developed it to fight against curses. At the formation of the towers and the Heavens, the primordial gods decided to use these Shields. Like you, it was to protect cultivators so they could grow and become strong enough to survive in the upper realms.”

“Why give this to me?”

“I’m sure you’ve realized your path is inexorably tied to a certain someone. You cannot ignore the path before you. Call it a kindness from me. A way for you to accept what you can’t avoid.”

“Like hell! I can avoid. I can!” Acco felt sick to his heart and knew the voice wasn’t wrong. What was he holding on to, anyway? His people shunned him, and he’d spent the last year filled with regret and resentment. A new Constellation was something he never counted on, and now this entity was trying to help him accept. Why?

“Who are you?”

“An ally.”

“That isn’t an answer!”

“Then call me Father Time. You may share the barrier spell with your people if you choose. I don’t need to mention why you should keep the other a secret.”

Acco sighed and placed the two books into his dimensional ring. A door appeared, and the number on the back of his hand changed to one. He smiled and swore at his nemesis to catch up to him now. Seconds later, it dropped to two, and then back down to three.

“Bastards…”